Velocity Based Training: make your training more effective

Is your training really effective? Yes, you can track loads reps and sets and train at the right percentage of your 1RM, but that might not be enough.

The use of velocity based training has been around since the soviet era, when sport scientist where using linear transducer to evaluate the conditions of shot putters and Olympic weightlifters, but now those technologies are available to the average gym athletes.

With Velocity Based Training athletes and coaches can maximize training based on the physical and psychological status of the athlete in that particular day. It can be used as an auto regulation method for athletes to optimize training goals.

Instead of simply using the percentage of 1RM, the loading is adapted based on the velocity expressed by the athlete during the lift. The load is modified during the training session to develop the correct trait and the number of reps may vary as the athlete drops under a certain velocity threshold.

Each athlete is different and each of them has different traits to improve, with auto regulation and Velocity Based Training, each training session will be more efficient and they’ll reach their goal faster.

Let’s use an example to understand better the concepts behind Velocity Based Training. John, one of our athletes, has classes every day 8 to 4, Lacrosse practice 2 days a week and goes to the gym every other day. On Thursday night he went to a birthday party and had a couple of drinks. On Friday he goes to the gym for his regular workout and starts squatting. His 1RM was based on a test he performed 2 weeks before when he was in great shape, so based on Percentage Based Training he should have worked out at 80% for a certain amount of reps. Now is that training efficient? Probably not, thanks to the velocity readings the coach or the athlete himself could understand that the work was inefficient and adapt to the accordingly.

To master Velocity Based Training is important to understand the concept of the force velocity curve. Different velocity readings develop certain specific traits.

This due to the fact that as the load increases the velocity at which you move the bar will decrease. I leave to another article the explanation of each single trait.

On Beast Web Portal you can find store the power and velocity reading and the load at which you perform them. To have a complete and useful curve, use Beast Sensor and build up to your 1RM, save the data and check online your load-velocity profile.

As I mentioned earlier each athlete is different thus also the curves will be different, the general objective for an athlete is to improve both speed and strength moving the curve to the right.

In the next article we will talk about the different traits athletes can develop, how they are positioned on the force velocity curve and how they are implemented in the Beast app.

by tommyrondi

Huge fan of the Beast Sensor, I have been involved with sports all my life, first as an athlete and later as a coach. I worked as alpine skiing coach for four years and played in the Italian national lacrosse team.
"work hard, play hard"